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All In With Chris Hayes, Transcript, 5/23/2016

Guests: James Carville, Michelle Fields, Chris Murphy, David Sirota, Joan Walsh, Ron Klain

Show: ALL IN with CHRIS HAYES Date: May 23, 2016 Guest: James Carville, Michelle Fields, Chris Murphy, David Sirota, Joan Walsh, Ron Klain

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CHRIS HAYES, MSNBC HOST (voice-over): Tonight on ALL IN --

HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: He could bankrupt America like he`s bankrupted his companies.

HAYES: Hillary Clinton finds her line of attack.

CLINTON: I mean, ask yourself. How can anybody lose money running a casino? Really?

HAYES: The new front opened up against Trump with James Carville.

Plus, Michelle Fields of "The Huffington Post" on covering Trump in a post- truth campaign.

Then, the art of the endorsement?

SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R), SOUTH CAROLINA: He`s a race baiting, xenophobic, religious bigot.

HAYES: Is Lindsey Graham quietly supporting the man who gave out his cell phone number onstage?

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: He gave me his number and I found the card.

HAYES: Plus, today`s massive victory for Bernie Sanders with the DNC.

And the ironic loophole in Donald Trump`s denial, global warming.

TRUMP: It`s a hoax. I mean, it`s a money-making industry, OK?

HAYES: When ALL IN starts right now.

TRUMP: We need some global warming, it`s freezing. Bad.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HAYES: Good evening from New York. I`m Chris Hayes.

For the very first time in this very long and very unpredictable campaign, Hillary Clinton`s making a sustained definitive argument against Donald Trump. Painting him not as a standard Republican, pushing agenda items like cutting the top`s top bracket and shrinking the federal budget, but as a uniquely dangerous candidate who poses an immediate threat to the American way of life and the future of this country. Clinton made her case in Detroit at the annual convention of the Service Employees International Union.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CLINTON: We`re not talking about any ordinary anti-union, anti-worker Republican. A lot of Republicans themselves say Donald Trump is a disaster waiting to happen to America.

Trump economics is a recipe for lower wages, fewer jobs, more debt. He could bankrupt America like he`s bankrupted his companies. I mean, ask yourself. How can anybody lose money running a casino? Really?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HAYES: This comes as polls show the likely general election race between Clinton and Trump tightening. They`re in a statistical dead heat in a new NBC News/"Wall Street Journal" poll which had Clinton up by 11 points just a month ago.

It`s a big shift as Republicans clearly start to consolidate around Trump as their presumptive nominee, while Democrats remain divided between Clinton and her ongoing rival Bernie Sanders. More on that coming up in just a bit.

But though Clinton has yet to formally clinch the Democratic nomination, she`s now fully turning her focus to the battle against Trump, portraying him as a bully who picks on women, immigrants and workers.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CLINTON: We need a president who will use the bully pulpit to stand up for working families but the last thing we need is a bully in the pulpit. And nobody knows better than a union like SEIU that the only way to stand up to a bully is to stand up together.

(CHEERS)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HAYES: In an interview that aired yesterday on "Meet the Press", Clinton targeted what Trump has made his central claim, his purported business acumen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CLINTON: Businesspeople have, especially successful businesspeople who are really successful, as opposed to pretend successful, I think have a lot to offer.

CHUCK TODD, MEET THE PRESS: Pretend successful? You don`t think -- is there anything Donald Trump done that you think should be praised?

CLINTON: I think he needs to release his tax returns. The only two we have show that he hasn`t paid a penny in taxes. We have to get below the hype. We have to find what the reality is.

TODD: You don`t feel like you know that?

CLINTON: I don`t think the country knows it.

TODD: But do you?

CLINTON: I think that we`re beginning to find out but I don`t think we know enough. And that`s why he should release his tax returns, prove that he actually has the level of success he claims to have.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HAYES: For his part, Donald Trump is continuing to take what might generously be called the low road in his attacks on Clinton.

Today, he once again sought to use her husband`s alleged behavior to undercut Clinton`s claim of standing up for women, releasing a video on Instagram, juxtaposing an image of Bill Clinton smoking a cigar with audio from interviews with two women who claim he sexually assaulted them, and ending with a completely out of context clip of Hillary Clinton laughing, all set to some rather ominous music. Caption, "Is Hillary really protecting women?"

I spoke with Democratic strategist and former Clinton adviser James Carville and asked him, how you deal with an opponent who`s so willing to operate outside the usual political norms?

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JAMES CARVILLE, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST AND FORMER CLINTON ADVISER: It`s amazing because these fact check organizations, factcheck.org, PolitiFact and (INAUDIBLE), they keep pointing out that he lies. And they said, you know, most people, when you -- politicians, you catch them in a lie, they apologize or stop repeating it. He just keeps repeating the same ones over and over again.

It is truly amazing to watch and continue to say things that just keep rebutted time and time again. But I guess he hasn`t -- he`s not going to change. He`s just going to keep rolling with what he`s got.

HAYES: So, then, what do you -- I mean, that`s a good point which is that a lot of times what will stop a candidate from saying something is just shame, right? Just the basic idea they`ve been called out.

CARVILLE: Right. If I say something on your show and you say, no James, that`s not true -- I just won`t say it again.

HAYES: Right.

CARVILLE: OK, he`ll just keep repeating it. It`s been pointed out, I`ve seen these guys on television, in interviews, they`re just flummoxed by the whole thing. I think it`s like 9 percent true or mostly true on one of these sites, my figures may be wrong. But they`re so much lower than anybody else, it`s ridiculous. And he really doesn`t care. He just plows on.

I think the accretion of things is causing harm but the 41 percent, 42 percent of the people in the country don`t really care if he tells the truth or not. So, they think we`re all lying anyway so why should he tell the truth?

HAYES: What do you do about it? How do you return fire? How do you craft a strategy to deal with a candidate -- it`s only a week into this general race and he`s gone right --

CARVILLE: You know, there`s correlation and causation. There`s a story by this guy David Cay Johnston, who is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, about Trump and the mafia. And as opposed to dealing with that he just starts on something else, and there will be more of these stories that come out. The more these people come in, now I understand "The Washington Post" is working on a big series.

And there`s going to be a lot more of these stories come out. And he`s going to get wilder and wilder as he gets -- things keep coming forward.

HAYES: Here`s asymmetry I see. So, let`s say you talk about David Cay Johnson did do s some extensive reporting on Trump`s record in connection to either established or reputed mafia figures in New York real estate, my question is if you`re advising Hillary Clinton, does she go with that attack?

Part of the asymmetry is Trump will lead with that kind of thing, the traditional role of the candidate like Hillary Clinton would not to be the person leveling that attack.

CARVILLE: I don`t think -- I really don`t think that`s her nature, I don`t think that she`s going to be tempted to level these kinds of attacks. Today I saw that she said, which I thought is a very good attack, this guy`s bankrupted four companies, if you look at his plan that he put out, he`s getting ready to bankrupt this country. So I think those kinds of things she`ll get into.

But there`s a lot of people out there that will be happy to point out a lot of things about Donald Trump, including how he got his business started in New York. I don`t think there will be any shortage of that kind of thing going on.

HAYES: So you imagine that this campaign will observe what is generally the somewhat traditional division of labor where the candidate talks about what the candidate wants to do, also presses certain lines of attack, usually fairly policy focused, while surrogates do the stuff of whatever someone`s reputed mob connections might be.

CARVILLE: I mean, the surrogates, (INAUDIBLE) repeated anything, I know a story that I read, I think it was in "Politico" by all accounts, I don`t know the gentleman, but a top-flight journalist, yes, a story like that appears, then at least this is one surrogate that`s going to say, well, I saw this story that when he starts attacking the crazy stuff that he puts out, this is one surrogate that`s going to say, wait a minute. Does anybody find it unique that a world-class journalist has ties to -- has him with ties to the mob, then he does this?

Yes, I mean, I think people are going to see that and point it out. And it would be stupid not to.

I don`t think Hillary -- I don`t think Secretary Clinton needs to do that, but a lot of people are glad to do it for her. Yours truly included.

HAYES: Exactly. James Carville, this surrogate, in other words -- thank you very much. Appreciate your time.

CARVILLE: Thank you. Appreciate it. Bye-bye.

HAYES: I`m joined now by Michelle Fields, a former Breitbart reporter who had her arm yanked by Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, now contributing reporter for "The Huffington Post".

Michelle, you in this back and forth with Corey Lewandowski you got to experience firsthand all the kind of basic playbook of the Trump world which is first to deny obvious and easily false final and checkable facts, and then to sort of launch into personal attacks as quickly as possible.

MICHELLE FIELDS, THE HUFFINGTON POST: Yes, and it seems as though facts don`t matter when it comes to the Trump campaign. And nothing sticks. What you were just discussing, you know, people can attack Trump for so many things and yet it seems to not even put a dent in his numbers or even affect his support.

So, you know, what I think you ought to do, you know, you see the Hillary Clinton campaign, they need to make sure they don`t treat Trump as a serious candidate. Clinton talked about that the other day. Not to normalize Donald Trump.

Treat him as though he is just this reality show star that`s unfit to be president. Kris Jenner, she has created the Kardashian empire. That doesn`t mean she`s fit to be president just because she has good business sense.

And that`s what Clinton needs to do. Don`t talk about him as though he`s a regular candidate who`s fit to be president, because he`s not. That is the case that the Clinton campaign ought to be making.

HAYES: Well, that -- I -- from a political strategic standpoint, I tend to agree, although it`s very hard I think for everyone around the observation this election to attain that, right? Because at a certain level, he`s achieved what is the most normal thing for a candidate. He`s won the nomination. He will be -- he`s nominated one of the two major parties in America.

How does that the press manage to maintain that as this goes forward?

FIELDS: Well, we -- first off, we saw Marco Rubio kind of do that towards the end.

HAYES: Yes.

FIELDS: He obviously did it too late, where he was making Trump out to be a joke. You saw Trump kind of exploding. He was so upset by it. That is what I think the Clinton campaign should do.

In terms of the press -- I mean, the press is in a really tough situation because Trump, he restricts access to reporters who are critical of him.

HAYES: Yes.

FIELDS: And then those who are nice to him, he gives tons of access to. And so, they have no incentive to be tough on him because they`re worried that they`re going to, you know, not have access. So, they`re really in a tough position when it comes to him.

HAYES: You made that point about Marco Rubio. And this to me gets to a really important distinction between two ways of talking about Trump. And Clinton went between them today.

One was that he`s a bully, which is one way of thinking about him. And the other is that he`s essentially a serial failure and a doofus and a con man.

FIELDS: Yes.

HAYES: And the Marco Rubio -- the one Marco Rubio tactic seems to work, and seems to stick, and seems to drive the numbers in the right direction from the perspective of the Never Trump forces was that attack.

FIELDS: Yes, but I also think -- we`re seeing Donald Trump attacking Hillary Clinton by attacking her husband saying he abuses women, and therefore, Hillary Clinton is an enabler. I think what Hillary ought to do is stay above the fray, show that you are much more above this man who`s running for president, let her surrogates, outside groups, attack Trump and call -- and really call into question his relationship with women, because he doesn`t have a very good history when it comes to women and the derogatory statements that he`s made about women.

HAYES: When you were in the vortex of this whole thing with Lewandowski, and let me just say my own editorializing, I felt the dispensation of that was probably correct that he shouldn`t have been actually charged or tried at least, or prosecuted for that assault.

Did you feel like you were in some sort of like reality-free zone-esque as the whole thing played out?

FIELDS: I think it was just bizarre to see the presidential candidate of my political party lying about me repeatedly on television. So, it was a very surreal moment but I`m very happy that that`s in the past. And I`ve sort of moved on from this, that everyone has sort of moved on from it.

HAYES: All right. Michelle Fields, thanks for your time. Appreciate it.

Still to come, Bernie Sanders trains his focus on the DNC. And today, he gets a big win. We`ll talk about that ahead.

But, first, is it possible to call a presidential candidate a race-baiting, xenophobic, religious bigot whose foreign policy will, quote, "lead to another 9/11," then urge full low Republicans to unite around said candidate? The latest Republican to fall in line, we think, this after this break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: I don`t want to have guns in classrooms, although in some cases, teachers should have guns in classrooms, frankly, because teachers are -- you know, things going on in our schools are unbelievable.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HAYES: That was Donald Trump yesterday contradicting himself within a single sentence, with an assertion that while he doesn`t want guns in classrooms, he definitely does want guns in classrooms.

Trump`s penchant for being on all sides of any particular issue has not prevented Republicans from falling in line behind their presumptive nominee. Even the ones you might think would have a pretty hard time with that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GRAHAM: If Donald Trump carries the banner of my party, I think it taints conservatism for generations to come. He`s a race-bating, xenophobic, religious bigot. Women and Hispanics hate his guts for good reason. He`s the ISIL man of the year.

Looking back we should have kicked him out of the party. I believe Donald Trump`s foreign policy, isolationism, it will lead to another 9/11. You know to make America great again, tell Donald Trump to go to hell.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HAYES: It appears, yes, it does, that even Senator Lindsey Graham may be coming around to the man who in an act of public bullying once read Graham`s private phone number out to a crowd.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: He gave me his number and I found the card. I wrote the number down. I don`t know if it`s the right number. Let`s try it 202 (AUDIO DELETED)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HAYES: He`s not swearing there. We`re just bleeping out the number so you don`t call, although I think it`s been disconnected.

Graham had what he called a cordial, pleasant phone conversation with Trump earlier this month. And over the weekend, Graham spoke in a private gathering of GOP donors in Florida where one fund-raiser recalled, "He did say that we need to get behind Trump." Graham is denying the report.

Also this weekend, Trump won the support of evangelical Republican mega donor Foster Friess. Friess is just one of many evangelicals rallying around Trump. Pastor Mark Burns told Bloomberg that he sees a connection to God in Trump`s signature hand gesture in which the thrice married billionaire points upward to punctuate his points.

"You see athletes all the time and it`s their chance to point to the sky to thank God for their success," said Burns. "Trump does this all the time, too. He`s giving reverence to the man upstairs."

Trump got a visit at Trump tower from a central figure in the GOP establishment. Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker who is seen as a potential Trump V.P. pick.

In a new NBC/"Wall Street Journal" poll shows that rank-and-file Republicans are consolidating around Trump, with 86 percent of Republicans now backing Trump against Hillary Clinton, up from 72 percent last month.

Joining me now is MSNBC political analyst, former Republican National Committee chairman, Michael Steele.

And, Michael, this movement among the voters I think is probably not surprising to you. You basically have been predicting this from the beginning.

MICHAEL STEELE, MSNBC POLITICAL ANALYST/FORMER REPUBLICAN NATIONAL COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN: Yes. Exactly. This is the trend line. And the voters have actually been out in front of the leadership in the party for quite some time when it comes to Trump. You had 17 very capable, qualified individuals running for the presidency, during this primary. And they chose, they narrowed it down, despite everything against them. They did.

And right now, you`re going to see the establishment types, the moneyed interest in the party, come to that same table. A little bit slower. But they`re going to get there.

HAYES: Right, so we`re seeing -- OK. We`re seeing Bob Corker today meeting at Trump tower, I thought was interesting Trump summons him up Trump Tower. Here`s my read on what`s happened the last three weeks. Paul Ryan flirted with this idea of trying to create some sort of third way, right? So, some way that you could carve out space that was you`re running as a Republican in 2016 but you`re not running as a Trumpkin, essentially.

STEELE: Right.

HAYES: And I think that clearly revealed itself to be impossible. Would you agree?

STEELE: Yes, because the reality was who was that individual?

HAYES: Right.

STEELE: Who would be the individual that everyone`s going to rally to if not Trump? And so, you`ve had nine, ten months of that. And the reality was, nobody showed up. So, where do you go from there? Nowhere.

So, you bring the temperature down. You quietly step off stage right. You move on to the next thing.

HAYES: Now, here`s the issue as I see it, I think from a purely sort of amoral, strategic perspective, it is probably ultimately correct that you can`t separate yourself from your party`s nominee. Your fortunes will rise and fall with him, right?

STEELE: Yes, yes.

HAYES: So, this idea you`re going to bail out Kelly Ayotte in New Hampshire by putting distance between Trump I think is ridiculous, right?

STEELE: Right. It`s absolutely right. Absolutely right.

HAYES: The problem then is to the degree that you`re completely interested in the guy, in for a penny, in for a pound, which means everything that he says for the next six months you own.

STEELE: Yes, yes.

(LAUGHTER)

STEELE: Yes.

HAYES: Right? Don`t you guys, all you guys -- doesn`t the Republican Party own everything he says the next five months?

STEELE: Well, they don`t own -- they don`t own everything and I think you will find during the course of this campaign, you will find if he says something that`s out there on the limb, you`ll find some folks who saw off that limb. They will not buy that piece of the tree.

So, yes, I think -- and that`s actually, to his -- I think a little bit of what Ryan was trying to do gets -- how it gets played out. People will have that ability to saw off those limbs that they don`t want to be a part of.

But your general thesis is the correct one. The tree is still the tree. The Republican Party and all its roots and branches. So, Kelly Ayotte and Rob Portman and all those senators, for example, on the bubble, they`re now part of that tree too. So the question becomes, and this is what you`re going to see the leadership, including the RNC and others, do.

Work with the Trump campaign to mitigate and quite frankly avoid as many of those as possible.

HAYES: So, here`s my question to you also, this question about cause and effect with the polling that we`re seeing. We`re seeing the consolidation of the party. I think that consolidation is pushing him up in the polls a little bit. And he`s sort of leveling to the equilibrium you`d expect from one of the two major party nominees.

STEELE: That`s right.

HAYES: Which is basically 45 percent, right?

STEELE: Right.

HAYES: Do you think that is driving the establishment to say, I think this guy can win, let`s get in?

STEELE: Partly, yes. I think the numbers, the new numbers coming out, certainly the polls that we`ve released here at NBC, showing that trend line. Even with Donald Trump down to Hillary Clinton, the gap has closed. And that does have an impact on money, has impact on organization -- yes. Absolutely.

HAYES: Are the, quote/unquote, "establishment," the professionals, the donor class, my sense is -- I feel this way strongly about the donor class, particularly the Republican donor class, but all donor classes, is that they`re basically -- they`re all dilatants.

STEELE: Of course.

HAYES: They don`t know anything. They made a lot of money doing one thing, or inheriting or whatever, and they think unlike the next president. Are they like obsessed with polls? Are they all like day traders, like calling up Reince every day? Ease up, I looked at the RCP average?

STEELE: Probably not to the same extent Donald Trump does.

(LAUGHTER)

HAYES: No one can beat him in that.

STEELE: I think, yes. They come into this game, they know their space, they own the space in business. They`re coming into politics, they want to play. They put money down, they bet on this particular candidate, that candidate.

So, yes, they do have an interest in how they`re performing, how they`re doing, how they`re registering with voters. And when the trend lines are moving in the up direction, they want to buy. You know?

HAYES: That is a well-articulated sentence, Michael Steele. Thank you for your time, always a pleasure.

STEELE: All right. Bye.

HAYES: Still to come, Congress moves to partially, partially fund the fight against the Zika virus. We`ll look at the cost of waiting three months to act.

Plus, a verdict in the second trial related to the death of Freddie Gray, the Baltimore man who died last spring while in Baltimore police custody. That story is next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HAYES: Today, a Baltimore circuit judge acquitted Police Officer Edward Nero of all four charges against him in connection with the death of Freddie Gray, the 25-year-old black man who sustained a fatal spinal cord injury while in police custody last spring. Officer Nero, who was widely seen as having the toughest case for the prosecution, was acquitted of charges after a five-day bench trial.

City leaders this afternoon urged calm. Maryland Congressman Elijah Cummings saying today, "I believe we`re on a road to creating a city that uplifts all its residents. Today`s verdict should not take us off course, instead, it should remind us of the importance of the road ahead."

Now, in addition to representing most of the city of Baltimore, today, it was announced that that same congressman, Elijah Cummings, will also chair the DNC platform committee ahead of the convention this July. The committee, which is responsible for developing the party`s policy positions, has now become a focal point in the battle between Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton for control of the Democratic Party. Who won the latest round coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CLINTON: We are coming to the end of the Democratic primaries. I applaud Senator Sanders and his supporters for challenging us. We are going to get unaccountable money out of politics. We are going to take on the crisis of income inequality. And we are going to unify the Democratic Party and stop Donald Trump!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HAYES: The last few weeks have seen a strange asymmetrical battle between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders in which Clinton has pivoted pretty definitively in the general election and Donald Trump, while Sanders not only continues to run an aggressive primary campaign but continues to win contests. And now, it appears the Sanders` campaign is shifting the bulk of attacks away from Clinton and towards the DNC and its chair, Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, and that includes coming out in support of her own primary challenger in her district, Tim Canova.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JAKE TAPPER, CNN ANCHOR: You`ve been calling for a revolution. In Florida are you with Wasserman Schultz or are you with her opponent?

SANDERS: Well, clearly I favor her opponent. His views are much closer to mine than is -- than Wasserman Schultz`s.

And let me also say this, in all due respect to the current chairperson, if elected president she would not be reappointed to be chair of the DNC.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HAYES: The Clinton campaign looking to make good on Clinton`s promise to unify as a party and take into account some of Sanders` more liberal policy concerns is not standing in the way of a deal that will give Sanders greater influence over the party platform.

Clinton and Sanders agreed today with DNC officials to a 15-member committee that writes the platform for the Democratic Party. Clinton has picked six members, Sanders has named five, and Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, chair of the DNC, will name four.

As politico noted earlier this month, Sanders initially argued each campaign should be able to pick seven members of the 15-member committee. But even by occupying a third of the seats expect Sanders and his supporters to have a sizable influence on the party`s platform that will be presented at the Democratic convention in July.

Joining me now, David Sirota, editor with the The International Business Times, former press secretary for Bernie Sanders; and Joan Walsh national affairs correspondent for The Nation, she has been writing in support of Hillary Clinton.

Here`s my question. First of all, let`s start with the platform thing. It looks promising if you are a Sanders supporter thinking about what does this come to if Sanders doesn`t get the nomination, this looks promising. And some of the names are people that I think lefty activists really love. For instance, Bill McKibben, who is one of the most important environmental activists in the whole world and Cornell West who is a controversial figure in many ways but beloved by many as well. James Zogby who has been very clear on his politics with respect to Palestinian self-dignity and human rights.

What do you think of this?

DAVID SIROTA, INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS TIMES: I mean, I think it`s what you should expect when Bernie Sanders has run the campaign he`s run. I don`t think a lot of people thought he would be at this position when he started his campaign. And I think that it`s the logical outgrowth of a campaign that`s probably in some ways surprised even Bernie Sanders about how successful it`s been.

And I think the pushback, if there is any pushback, this idea that he should end his campaign or he should stand down, I think Bernie Sanders is representing millions of people. It would almost be a slap in their face for him to back down and say, okay, the mathematical chances of me winning are almost nil, and I`m out.

HAYES: Well -- and I think -- well, that`s certainly the way see it, or at least they talk about seeing it. My question, though, is so you`ve got this platform committee. Now, we haven`t had a really good, big, platform fight in the Democratic Party for a while. There was like bit of one in 2012 on an Israel issue, which Villaraigosa basically took a voice vote and like completely overruled what actually happened.

JOAN WALSH, THE NATION: Right, I remember that.

HAYES: But also if you`re Hillary Clinton and you won, right, so you`re saying I don`t want a $15 national minimum wage, just as one item, right. You`re not going to concede that in a platform fight, right? Like, the whole point of running and winning is lie you believe in what you believe in and you win.

WALSH: I don`t know. I mean, she`s got Paul Booth, you know, long-time radical labor lefty, labor advocate. I mean, some of her people are pretty far to the left. I mean, she might not get everything she wants out of the platform.

HAYES: do you think that`s true? Do you think that they will be okay with a platform in which there`s space between Hillary Clinton and the platform?

WALSH: I think a little bit of space, sure.

HAYES: That`s interesting.

Because what we have -- that is something that is sort of a throwback platform, right, back when the sort of parties were stronger.

WALSH: Right.

HAYES: What we`ve had in the modern era more is the nominee basically takes a piece of paper and says, this is the Hillary 2016 agenda.

WALSH: No, I think opening it up and giving him five people -- I mean, also Debbie Wasserman-Schultz actually chose Barbara Lee.

HAYES: Exactly.

WALSH: Who`s far left.

HAYES: Whose politics are very close to Bernie Sanders.

WALSH: She stayed neutral but they`re closer to Bernie Sanders, and that`s a big deal even to stay neutral as we`ve discussed for some lefty people.

HAYES: right.

WALSH: So, it`s a pretty progressive slate including some of Clinton`s own supporters.

SIROTA: And it might give her the chance to say, the Democratic Party`s for this but I`m going to move to the center. I`m not actually for it. We`ve seen in Colorado where the Colorado Democratic Party supported the single-payer health care initiative, but Michael Bennett, the sitting U.S. senator has said, I don`t support that.

Now, there`s a different politics there, but he can sort of say, oh, I`m not a (inaudible) Democrat.

HAYES: Right. That actually is an interesting point.

The other thing that I thought interesting about the developments today was, I sense -- and tell me if you think this is right, David, basically them turning some of the sort of animus, frustration, object of their who the establishment is, from Hillary Clinton to Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, which makes a lot of sense in ways, because, a, they can win fights against Debbie Wasserman-Schultz. And b, if you`re going to try to unite people behind Hillary Clinton, she`s a much better bad guy, essentially, to be up against.

SIROTA: Yeah. I mean, look. It`s an easier fight to have, as you said, with the DNC, which is not just Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, it`s kind of a faceless thing. It`s like, when we say like people don`t like congress. People don`t like the DNC.

HAYES: Right, who likes the DNC?

SIROTA: Right, nobody really likes the DNC, except maybe you know superdelegates and the the like. And I think that the other political theory behind this is that the more progressive you can make the Democratic Party on paper as an official party, the more, if not locks Hillary Clinton in, then at least holds her towards that as the standard for what being a Democrat actually is.

HAYES: And there`s also -- I mean, like campaigns need enemies, right, like that`s how campaigning works, right. You`re fighting someone and that`s what energizes people. And it strikes me today, I had this moment of, like, oh right, so maybe that`s how this sort of ends is that this is the enemy.

WALSH: Right, this is the enemy and we`re training our fire away from Hillary Clinton toward her.

I mean, I would also say -- I`m not going to talk about the merits of a primary campaign against Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, but I think that that`s the kind of thing he should be doing.

I think the...

HAYES: Totally, yes.

WALSH: I think the most promising thing that Senator Sanders could do is turn his movement into a movement to elect down-ballot progressives, hopefully Democrats, but progressive Democrats. And so he`s entirely within his rights.

I don`t just see that move as Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, I`ll get you. I also see it as, I`m going to begin to use my influence that way to really support progressives even in primaries against regular Democrats.

HAYES: And we should say, they raised over $250,000 when he was sort of featured in this Sanders email. And also the same gravitational logic applies which is, like, if she`s got a primary challenger in her own backyard that`s going to affect how she operates the next few months.

WALSH: Right.

HAYES: David Sirota, Joan Walsh, thanks for joining me. Appreciate it.

Coming up, according to Donald Trump, climate change is just a hoax, only weather, pseudo science, unless of course it affects his bottom line. That delightful story right after this break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HAYES: The presumptive Republican presidential nominee, Donald Trump`s derision of climate change, the phenomenon caused by human beings and carbon, is well established. But here`s a little reminder.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: Who believes in global warming? Raise your hand. Wow. Not much, huh? Do you have your hand up? A little? No. No.

It`s like record, record cold. And I keep hearing about global warming. Now, they`ll say, he doesn`t understand. This is a worldwide problem. Oh, no, I don`t understand. Let`s do IQ tests.

So, Obama`s talking about all of this with the global warming and the that. A lot of it`s a hoax, it`s a hoax, I mean, it`s a money-making industry, OK. It`s a hoax, a lot of it.

I think that there will be little change here, it will go up, it will get a little cooler, it`ll get a little warmer like it always has for millions of years.

It will get cooler, it`s get warmer, it`s called weather.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HAYES: It`s an impressive degree of climate change denial. But it just so happens there is one instance in which Donald Trump does believe climate change is real. What is that instance? Here`s a hint.

The answer in 60 seconds.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HAYES: So presumptive GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump does not believe in global warming, unless of course it might affect him or more specifically and importantly his business interests.

Here`s the answer to the question, the one instance in which Donald Trump does believe climate change is real.

Yes, the Trump International Golf Links and Hotel has made Donald J. Trump a believer in climate change as shown in this tourism ad. The course hugs the shoreline in southwest Ireland. As uncovered by Politico, Trump has twice filed a zoning application, first with the national, then the local government, for permission to build a sea wall to protect that golf course.

The statement in support of the application reads, and I`m quoting here, "if the predictions of an increase in sea level rise as a result of global warming prove correct, it is likely there will be a corresponding increase in coastal erosion rates. In our view, it could reasonably be expected the rate of sea level rise might become twice of that presently occurring."

The 200,000 ton wall of rock armor, according to the Irish Times, would stretch about 1.7 miles. The resort lost substantial ground in 2014 during the two winter storms at its 6th, 9th and 10th holes.

If Trump gets this wall approved it will stand in relation to Trump`s climate change denials literally as a monumental fact check.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. MARCO RUBIO, (R) FLORIDA: We have to get ahead of this. None of us want to be in a position in June and July and August where this thing breaks out. This is an issue we should jump on with a real sense of urgency. And it is a federal responsibility to be involved in this.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HAYES: President Obama has an unlikely ally in his administration`s request for $1.9 billion in funding to combat the Zika virus. Senator Marco Rubio, former presidential candidate and Republican of Florida, has made repeated calls to take the threat seriously. The House and Senate have passed bills that offer the administration far less than requested. Yesterday, the former head of the administration`s successful response to Ebola, Ron Klain, issued a stern warning saying in a Washington Post op ed, quote, "it is not a question of whether babies will be born in the U.S. with Zika-related microcephaly, it is a question of when and how many. For years to come, these children will be a visible human reminder of the cost of absurd wrangling in Washington, of preventable suffering, of a failure of our political system to respond to the threat that infectious diseases pose."

And joining me now, White House Ebola response coordinator Ron Klain.

Mr. Klain, why do you think the response that`s coming from congress is insufficient?

RON KLAIN, FRM. EBOLA RESPONSE COORDINATOR: Well, first of all no response has come at all from congress. The House has passed a bill that funds one- third of the response, it does it by cutting other diseases. The Senate proposed a partial response, both those bills now are pending.

We don`t need a conference committee, we need action. We need to get the funding in place to power the response. President Obama proposed his response in February, it`s three months later, summer`s coming, the mosquitos are coming, we need to get the response passed and into the field.

HAYES: What steps can the federal government take to mitigate this spread of this here in the States?

KLAIN: Well, in the short-term, the most important thing we can do is really power up the mosquito control. The Aedes aegypti mosquito, which is prevalent throughout the southeastern United States, around the Gulf of Mexico, you know, up to the southeastern coast, you know, that`s the home of these mosquitos. They`re going to start to get very active as we get to later May, early June, July. They will spread this disease in the United States and controlling those mosquito populations is the first objective.

The president`s proposed response also will accelerate research on a vaccine. That`s what we need. And we have the best infectious disease researchers here in the United States led by Tony Fouchet (ph), NIH. They`re working hard on a vaccine. We need to accelerate that work so we can protect people in the future from this disease, because it`s going to be with us for a while.

HAYES: Mr. Klain, you`ve been in Washington a long time. You`ve seen a thing or two. Can you explain to me why when Ebola was happening the political response was total panic, hair on fire, the world is ending, it`s World War Z. And you had the experts saying, look, it`s not, it`s okay, we`re going to be fine, let`s follow the protocols. And you have the opposite with Zika. The political system doesn`t seem to care much one way or the other. No one is talking about it. And the experts are completely spooked about it.

KLAIN: Well, look. I think that Ebola was a real threat and congress acted. You know, President Obama sent a $6 billion funding request to fight Ebola. Congress passed it, bipartisan majority in both chambers, five weeks after he submitted it. That helped make sure that Ebola wasn`t a big problem in the United States, it wasn`t just an accident that Ebola didn`t become a big threat, we fought Ebola and we beat Ebola.

I can`t explain why we don`t have the same urgency around Zika. Maybe people don`t really appreciate how serious it is. They don`t really appreciate the kind of threat it poses. And it`s a new disease, one that we`re not really as familiar with. But that disease will definitely impact our country. It`s not coming, it`s here. We have a couple hundred people in the United States with the disease already. Almost 300 pregnant women in the U.S. and territories with the disease. We need to get on top of this. We need to fund the president`s response. We need to get this under control before mosquitoes start to spread it here in the U.S., and before sexual transmission accelerates in the U.S.

HAYES: Clock is ticking, congress. Ron Klain, thank you very much.

KLAIN: Thanks, Chris.

HAYES: Right after the break, although investigators still don`t know what brought down EgyptAir flight 804, that is not stopping the presumptive Republcian nominee from declaring his own conclusions. That is right after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HAEYS: Five days after EgyptAir flight 804 disappeared from radar, U.S. officials tell NBC News they have still not developed any hard evidence that terrorism brought down the plane that had 66 people onboard. At least three agencies are looking into how the flight crashed, and so far they say they have no direct clues that point to terrorism.

In other words, at this moment, the American government does not know what brought down that plane.

Donald Trump, however, continues to claim that he does. When asked about Hillary Clinton`s criticism that he said terrorism brought down the flight without having the facts, he told The Wall Street Journal, quote, "why should I be politically correct? He said, adding that there was nothing wrong with the timing of the statement, because, quote, I`m turning out to be right. I`m always right. You`ll see. You`ll see. I`m always right."

Within hours of the flight`s disappearance last week, Trump tweeted, "looks like yet another terrorist attack. Airplane departed from Paris. When will we get tough, smart, and vigilant? Great hate and sickness!" Exclamation point.

Now that evening, citing zero evidence, he asserted that the plane had been blown out of the sky.

(BEIGN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: And I`m saying to myself. What just happened 12 hours ago? A plane got blown out of the sky. And if anything -- if anybody thinks it wasn`t blown out of the sky, you`re 100 percent wrong, folks, okay?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HAYES: Not only has Trump said the plane was brought down by terrorists, he has also claimed to know which terrorists brought it down.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: I can practically guarantee who blew it up.

MIKA BRZEZINSKI, MSNBC: But, listen -- Donald, listen to yourself right now.

TRUMP: Mindset of a weak Hillary Clinton, which is four more years of Obama is not going to do it for our country.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HAYES: In an attempt to try to convince voters he`s ready to be commander- in-chief, the Republican Party`s presumptive nominee is currently using a plane crash that killed dozens of people, about which we still know very little, as nothing more than a political cudgel to wield against Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama on foreign policy.

Voters, however, appear to have some concerns about his ability to lead the country. A new NBC/Wall Street Journal poll showing a combined 61 percent of voters are concerned about Trump`s lack of government or military experience, 19 percent have reservations, 42 percent of voters feel outright uncomfortable with his lack of traditional experience.

Joining me now, Senator Chris Murphy, Democrat from Connecticut, member of the Senate foreign relations committee who has endorsed Hillary Clinton for president.

And Senator, and I want you to respond first to Trump saying, why should I be politically correct when pressed about speculating -- not even speculating, just contending that he knows the origins of a air tragedy that`s still being investigated?

SEN. CHRIS MURPHY, (D) CONNECTICUT: OK, so first, he doesn`t know the origins. He`s making that up. No one knows the origins or the cause of that crash.

Second, he`s not going to change. We`ve been told now for about four to five months that the presidential Trump was right around the corner. It`s not coming. And he`s not going to change if he was going to become president.

And third, it`s these kind of statements as president that tank financial markets, that start wars, and potentially get thousands of people killed. It might be quixotic and kind of interesting to hear him wax on about what his theories of the case are with respect to this crash, but when you say that as president, adversaries and allies react, markets react, and terrible things happen.

And so I just think it`s important for the American public to understand, this guy is not changing. He`s a racist xenophobic, off the cuff, unstable presidential candidate. And he`s going to be the same way as the president of the United States.

HAYES: Well, you -- I mean, a lot of people, it`s funny, when I`ve spent a lot of time talking to supporters, and a lot of the supporters, I think, they sort of price this in, right? Like, basically, the way that -- and I`ve had people in my life that I`ve liked even though they like talked a lot of trash and I would sort of excuse it. Like, they`re just talking trash, don`t -- you get that.

I mean, spell out why that`s dangerous, right? Like, if you`re president of the United States and you`re the president of the United States saying ten minutes after this plane goes down, this was terrorism, like, what does that mean geopolitically?

MURPHY: Well, so, let`s take it into a different context. Let`s say that there was a terrorist-looking attack in Warsaw, Poland. And Donald Trump decides that it`s the Russians, right? When he makes a statement like that, there is a treaty that is underneath it. There is an obligation that is triggered when an American president says that a certain attack happens within the constrict of a treaty. Our allies in the region will act, wars literally get started by presidents who say the wrong thing.

And so, this isn`t just instability, this isn`t just an annoyance, politically, this really can lead to real-world consequences in which hostilities start because you rush to snap judgments. And, again, this is who he is in his DNA. So, there`s no set of advisers he`s going to be able to put around himself to stop this from happening when he`s president.

HAYES: Let`s talk about experience. It was interesting to me to look a little bit about the polling on this. And I think that people are so -- his personality is so sort of overdetermines the way people feel about him. If you just step back, Americans haven`t nominated someone like this to be president, you know, since 1940. How much does it matter -- you see the operations of the U.S. government`s foreign policy up close every day. How much does experience matter?

MURPHY: I mean, this really would be remarkable. I mean, the most unprepared president since maybe Chester A. Arthur to enter the White House.

And it does matter, because today we are not in a black and white world. The question of when and how you go to war with a tactic that is terrorism, rather than a well-defined enemy, like the Soviet Union, involve very complicated questions. And, of course, we`ve seen the mistakes that have been made when there is a president in the White House who refuses to listen to smart advice around him. George W. Bush got us into a war that we`re still essentially extricate ourselves from, because he was narrow- minded, not listening to outside advice.

So, today when it`s more difficult than ever to find your enemy, attack it, experience matters. And the fact that Donald Trump isn`t really willing to listen to anyone, other than himself, he`s said it over and over and over again, that`s maybe what`s most dangerous.

HAYES: Yeah, I`m reminded about Al Pacino in Glenngary Glenn Ross saying, you never open your mouth until you know what the shot is, which is a good rule for president.

Senator Chris Murphy, thanks for joining me. Appreciate it.

That is All In for this evening. The Rachel Maddow Show starts right now.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED. END